Except now, I’m thinking about that flight and the moment the pilot commanded us to put on the oxygen masks. The moment in which I became fully convinced I was about to die.
The air in the room thins. Victoria’s voice keeps climbing, each word stacking on the last like bricks on my chest, andsuddenly I’m not in a bed-and-breakfast in Maine anymore. I’m six years old, buckled into a middle seat, my mother’s nails cutting half-moons into my forearm while she lists every way a plane can fall out of the sky.
Engine failure. Pilot error. Birds in the engines.
My lungs seize.
The breath I try to take catches somewhere between my throat and my chest and juststops, like someone reached inside me and pinched the airway shut. I suck in again—nothing. My vision blurs at the edges, dark spots blooming like ink dropped in water.
“—and do you have any idea what this looks like for the press tour? Montreal was supposed to be?—”
I can’t hear her anymore. All I hear is the high whine of a failing engine, the screech of metal, the captain’s voice sayingoxygen masksin that too-calm tone that meant everything was very much not okay. My hands shake so violently the phone nearly slips from my grip.
Breathe. Just breathe.
I can’t. I can’t breathe. The room is too small, the walls pressing inward, and my heartbeat pounds in my ears like a drum being beaten underwater?—
The mattress dips. Warmth at my side, solid and immediate. A hand—large, steady—settles between my shoulder blades.
“Hey.” Atticus’s voice, rough with sleep but anchored in a way that cuts through the static in my head. “Easy. You’re on the ground.”
His palm presses flat against my spine, the pressure firm enough to feel real. I focus on that point of contact, the heat of his skin bleeding through the thin cotton of my shirt.
Victoria’s voice comes sharp. “Is that—Atticus? Is he in bed with you?”
Her entire demeanor transforms. The frantic mother act evaporates, replaced by something slick and calculating, like watching a snake shed its skin in real time.
“Well, well. Have you two been in bed togetherall night?”
The question drips with implication. Not accusation—opportunity. I can practically see the gears turning behind her eyes, the mental calculations of exactly how much tabloid currency this is worth.
I jerk sideways, putting distance between myself and Atticus so fast the phone tilts wildly, giving Victoria a dizzying view of the ceiling.
“It’s not like that.” My voice comes out wrecked, still breathless from the almost-panic-attack. “There was only one room, Mom. One room in the entire inn. We didn’t—nothing happened.”
“Darling, it doesn’t matter whatit is.” Victoria’s smile is a knife wrapped in silk. “It matters what peoplethinkit is. Hold still, both of you. I want to get a screenshot.”
Her finger moves toward her screen.
Atticus plucks the phone from my hand in one fluid motion.
“Victoria! So lovely to catch up.” He angles the screen toward his own face, all bleary charm and bedhead. “Unfortunately we seem to be losing you—must be the rural cell coverage out here?—”
“The picture is perfectly clear, Atticus?—”
“What’s that? You’re breaking up.” He taps the screen with his thumb. “Can’t hear a thing. Terrible connection. Real shame.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on?—“
The screen goes black. Atticus holds the power button until the phone dies completely, then drops it onto the nightstand with a soft click.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” I say incredulously. The idea of just hanging up on my mother has always been there, obviously, it’s just not something I would ever consider actually doing. “She is going to be so pissed.”
“Good thing she isn’t here,” he says, already flopping back on the bed and covering his eyes with his forearm. “If you actually do want a photo for your feed, ask me when it’s an appropriate time to be awake. Preferably in about four hours.”
He pulls the sheet up until it gathers around his waist. Within thirty seconds, his breathing evens out again, slow and deep and utterly unbothered.
I sit there in the dark, heart still hammering, staring at the dead phone on the nightstand.
